Saturday, December 27, 2014

Islamic State has suffered severe losses as a result of coalition air
strikes in the last months. Over 1,000 of its fighters have been
killed, and Kurdish peshmerga forces have driven the jihadists back on a
wide front between the cities of Erbil and Mosul.
The terror movement has also failed to conquer the symbolic town of
Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) close to the Syrian-Turkish border (further south,
Islamic State losses have been more modest and at least partially
reversed).

Monday, December 22, 2014

This
article provides the most thorough overview yet of how jihadis have plotted
terrorist attacks in Europe. Drawing on a database of 122 incidents, we review
trends in weapon types, attack types and target types in the period 1994–2013.
The overall finding is that jihadi terrorism in Europe is becoming more
discriminate in its targeting while attack types and weapons are becoming
progressively more diverse. The most likely scenarios in the coming three to
five years are bomb attacks and armed assaults against sub-national entities,
communities and individuals. A majority of the terrorist attacks will be
limited in scope, but mass-casualty terrorism cannot be excluded. Foreign
fighters from Syria are likely to influence the threat level in Europe, but we do
not expect them to alter patterns in modus operandi dramatically.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

The so-called "Great Albania" project, which is merely the unification of Albanian scattered populations in the Balkans, is being sought after by a variety of often conflicting in between them, nationalistic circles, with little chances of success.

Friday, December 19, 2014

The Movement of the Taliban
in Pakistan,
one of many al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the South Asian
country, launched one of its more horrific attacks earlier today. A nine-man Taliban
suicide assault team stormed a high school for the children of military
personnel in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Armed with suicide vests and assault rifles, the squad fanned out across the
school and executed everyone in its path. An estimated 145 people were killed, most of them students between the
ages of 12 and 16.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

A joint U.S.-Turkish operation last month led to the capture
of a senior Libyan al-Qaeda leader allegedly involved in the 2012 murder of
Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi. While the arrest highlights
high-level U.S.-Turkish intelligence cooperation, it also raises serious
questions over Turkey’s transformation into a terrorist hub.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Being a U.S. ally does not absolve a country of its responsibilities.
Failure to sanction Qatar and Turkey sends a powerful message to these
terror sponsors.

A bipartisan group of two dozen members of Congress have written a letter
to the U.S. Treasury Department asking for sanctions on Turkey and
Qatar, supposedly two U.S. “allies,” for their support of Hamas and
other Islamist terrorists (Click here to see a copy of the letter). “Any entity or nation that continues
to back this U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization [Hamas] and
provides it material and financial support should be sanctioned…We also
request specific public updates on Treasury’s discussions with the
Qatari government on previously designated, Qatar-based terrorist
financiers that the Qataris have yet to act upon,” the letter requests.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Israel filed a complaint with NATO in late November over Turkey’s role in supporting terrorism in the
West Bank and Gaza.
Specifically, Israel called out Turkey for harboring and supporting known Hamas
officials. The complaint specifically mentions Salah al-Arouri, the head of
Hamas’ armed wing in the West Bank, who has lived in Turkey since 2010. Arouri
also claimed responsibility for this summer’s kidnapping
and murder of three Israeli teenagers, an abduction that helped spark this
summer’s war 50-day war in Gaza.

Fighters from the Caucasus
Emirate entered the Chechen capital of Grozny
last night and launched a major assault on security forces and government
buildings. The fighting, which lasted through the morning and is reported to
have killed more than a dozen people, ended a relative lull in activity in the
Russian Caucasus by the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group.

Facts
prove the Brotherhood's violent history. The White House itself has condemned
the organization's calls to violence.

The White House has
rejected a request to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, describing
the group as non-violent. The statement is not only at odds with known facts;
it’s at odds with statements made by the White House only one year ago.The White House statement
came in response to a petition with 200,000 signatures citing the
Brotherhood’s history of violence and how its preachers, particularly Sayyid Qutb,
have bred multitudes of terrorists. Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
recently banned the Brotherhood as a terrorist group.“We have not seen credible
evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced its decades-long commitment
to non-violence,” the White House said.Yet, on July 8, 2013, the
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “We also condemn the explicit
calls to violence made by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Italy has always been an appealing hideout for
Tunisian jihadists during the years that Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was in power
and that is mainly due to two reasons: the vicinity between the two countries,
only about 140 km separate the Tunisian coast from Sicily and the possibility
to disguise among the vast presence of Tunisians and North Africans in general.

Monday, December 1, 2014

The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that controls large portions
of Iraq and Syria, and its supporters are marketing the Sinai as a
destination for young recruits seeking to wage jihad.
On Nov. 10, the Sinai-based faction of Ansar Bayt al Maqdis (ABM), also known as Ansar Jerusalem, swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who heads the Islamic State. Shortly thereafter, ABM began marketing itself as the Islamic State's province in the Sinai.

Friday, November 28, 2014

The Islamic State, the Al Nusrah Front, the
Islamic Front, and Junud al Sham have been showcasing camps in Iraq and
Syria that are being used to indoctrinate and train children to wage
jihad. The groups have recently advertised a number of training
facilities for children, including one located in Ninewa province in
Iraq and others in Aleppo, in and around the Islamic State's
self-proclaimed capital of Raqqah, and other areas of Syria.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Nuclear talks with Iran have failed to yield an agreement, but the
deadline for a deal has been extended without a hitch. What would have
been a significant crisis a year ago, replete with threats and anxiety,
has been handled without drama or difficulty. This new response to yet
another failure to reach an accord marks a shift in the relationship
between the United States and Iran, a shift that can’t be understood
without first considering the massive geopolitical shifts that have
taken place in the Middle East, redefining the urgency of the nuclear
issue.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Although outwardly more liberal than the Saudis, the Qataris have surpassed them as financiers of extremism and terrorism.
U.S. officials reckon that Qatar has now replaced Saudi Arabia as the
source of the largest private donations to the Islamic State and other
al-Qaeda affiliates.
Qatar, the world's wealthiest country per capita, also has the
unsavory reputation for the mistreatment and effective slavery of much
of its workforce.
Leaders of Western states threatened by jihadi advances are happy to
sit down with the largest financiers of terrorism in the world, offer
them help, take as much money as they can, and smile for the cameras.

Mehdi Hassan is the fourth British man from the coastal city of Portsmouth to be killed
while fighting for ISIS in Syria. Hassan was just 19 when he left with
four friends for Syria in October 2013. They named themselves the
"Britani Brigade Bangladeshi Bad Boys." Four of the five have been
killed.
Much of the media has, over the last few years, attempted to explain
why British Muslims are being radicalized, and why some wish to fight
for a terror group known and feared for its brutality.
Some commentators blame the darker corners of the internet; some point to the supposed glamour and glory of war, and others attribute part of the blame to "government policy" and the "persecution" felt by British Muslims living in a country allegedly full of "anti-Islamic feeling."
Those concerned with the practical workings of radicalization,
however, look to the initial involvement of Western recruits to ISIS
with extremist preachers and organizations. Even while crediting the
allure of the internet, it seems improbable that anyone would join a
cult or extremist group without some encouragement or introduction.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's Islamic State, the al Qaeda offshoot that controls large portions of Iraq and Syria, has claimed to have beheaded yet another Western hostage,
along with more than a dozen captured Syrian soldiers. In a
newly-released video, a henchman for the group stands over what appears
to be the severed head of Peter Kassig, a former US Army Ranger turned
aid worker who was kidnapped in Syria in late 2013.
From the Islamic State's perspective, such videos serve multiple
purposes. They are meant to intimidate the organization's enemies in the
West and elsewhere, show defiance in the face of opposition, and to
convince other jihadists that Baghdadi's state is the strong horse. Al
Qaeda, the Islamic State's rival, long ago determined that graphic
beheading videos do more harm than good for the jihadists' cause, as
they turn off more prospective supporters than they earn. But the
Islamic State has clearly come to the opposite conclusion, cornering the
market on savagery.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Jabhat al-Nusra, like the Lebanse Shi'ite organization, is emerging
as a movement that combines uncompromising jihadi ideology with tactical
flexibility. Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamist group which constitutes
al-Qaida's "official franchise" in Syria, this week carried out a
successful offensive against Western-backed rebel militias in northern
Syria. Key areas were captured.
Islamic State and its activities further east continue to dominate
Western media reporting on the war in Syria. But in northwest Syria,
Lebanon and the area immediately east of the Golan, it is Nusra which is
becoming the main Sunni jihadi force on the ground.
There are significant differences in the praxis of these two
movements, despite their near-identical ideological stances. Islamic
State prefers to rule by straightforward terror – see its slaughter of
322 members of the Albu Nimr tribe north of Ramadi this week.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Washington seems to have abandoned its Levant remodeling map for
another. However, the failure of the first project and the strength of
the Syrian people do not bode well for the implementation of this new
plan. Thierry Meyssan reviews the adjustments it requires and the
division it has created within the coalition: on one side, the United
States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, on the other, France and Turkey.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

In the wake of US-led air strikes on an
Islamic State (IS) convoy near the Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday, media
have been awash with rumours that IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was
killed or injured.

The apparent silence of IS sources on the issue could be evidence
that something has happened to al-Baghdadi. But there was a similar lack
of official IS denial of rumours that the group's spokesman, Abu
Muhammad al-Adnani, had been killed in air strikes earlier this year -
something that later turned out to be unfounded.
A Twitter account purportedly belonging to Adnani has claimed
Baghdadi should be on his way to a speedy recovery, but the account is
almost certainly fake, as it refers to Adnani in the third person at one
point. Were it real, Twitter would have deleted it some time ago,
having cracked down on all traces of an official IS presence on its
platform.

Friday, November 14, 2014

US Central Command
[CENTCOM] attempted to distinguish between the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's
official branch in Syria, and the so-called Khorasan Group in yesterday's's
press release that detailed airstrikes in Syria.CENTCOM, which directs the
US and coalition air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,
denied that the five airstrikes targeted "the Nusrah Front as a
whole" due to its infighting with the Syrian Revolutionaries' Front, but
instead claimed the attacks were directed at the Khorasan Group."These strikes were
not in response to the Nusrah Front's clashes with the Syrian moderate
opposition, and they did not target the Nusrah Front as a whole," CENTCOM
noted in its press release.

Friday, November 7, 2014

The
so-called "Arab Spring" had its start between December 2010 and
January 2011; since then the Middle East and North Africa have been at the
center of major social and political changes that in many cases ended up in
total chaos and war, as it is still nowadays in Syria and Libya and with
important repercussions in Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia and Egypt.

The
United States gave full support to those branches of political Islam linked to
the Muslim Brotherhood such as the FJP in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, while in
Syria the Islamist group was trying to establish their own militia and gain
influence in the armed struggle against Assad. [1] [2]

According
to Gulf News sources, the US have been maintaining close relationship with the
Muslim Brotherhood, organization that is banned in Russia since 2003 due to its
links to Chechen terrorists in the Caucasus and that has also recently been
banned in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

What kind of relations do the jihadists of northern Sinai and Gaza
have with Islamic State, and with Hamas? Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi declared a three-month national emergency this week, following
the killing of over 31 Egyptian soldiers in a suicide car bombing
carried out by jihadists in northern Sinai.
No organization has issued an authoritative claim of responsibility
for the bombing, but it comes amid a state of open insurgency in
northern Sinai, as Egyptian security forces battle a number of jihadist
organizations. Most prominent among these groups are Ansar Bayt
al-Maqdis and Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen; the attack on the Sinai
military base came a few days after an Egyptian court sentenced seven
members of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis to death for carrying out previous
attacks on the army.

The current snapshot of the Islamization process in the Balkans is of interesting nature nowadays, by taking into account the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the vicious war ignited by the "ISIS-Islamic State" in the Middle East.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Is the new alliance between Turkey and France concerned only with
economic issues, to wit entry into the European Union, or is it purely
political? In this case, must Paris provide cover for Ankara whatever
the policy? Does this support go as far as genocide?

For
the second time, the Obama administration has called Turkey into
question for its support of the Islamic Emirate (Daesh). First, October
2, Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, in a speech at the
Kennedy School at Harvard. [1] Then on October 23, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, David S. Cohen, before the Carnegie Foundation [2]. Both accused Ankara of supporting the jihadis and selling the oil they steal in Iraq and Syria.

In the face of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s denials, Biden had
apologized. The Turkish government had allowed the PKK to come to the
aid of Kobané Syrian Kurds besieged by Daesh. Alas! the behavior of
Ankara was not convincing and Washington renewed its accusations.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Austria has emerged as a major base for radical Islam and as a central hub for European jihadists to fight in Syria.
The proposed revisions would, among other changes, regulate the
training and hiring of Muslim clerics, prohibit the foreign funding of
mosques, and establish an official German-language version of the Koran
to prevent its "misinterpretation" by Islamic extremists.
Muslims would be prohibited from citing Islamic sharia law as legal
justification for ignoring or disobeying Austrian civil laws.
Leaders of Austria's Muslim community counter that the contemplated new law amounts to "institutionalized Islamophobia."
Official statistics show that nearly 60% of the inhabitants of Vienna
are immigrants or foreigners. The massive demographic and religious
shift underway in Austria, traditionally a Roman Catholic country,
appears irreversible.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Egyptian President El-Sisi is forcefully arguing that the U.S. is erring in focusing only on the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

The Egyptian Minister of Religious
Endowments says that the Islamic State terrorist group (also known as
ISIS or ISIL) was birthed from the Muslim Brotherhood movement, according to an October 13 report in an Egyptian newspaper called the Seventh Day.Other Egyptian leaders have made the
case in recent days that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist
terrorist groups belong in the same category as the Islamic State. The
Egyptian government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and its
Palestinian branch, Hamas, as terrorist groups.According to the report, Dr. Mohamed
Mokhtar Gomaa said that the Muslim Brotherhood is the progenitor of the
Islamic State and similar terrorist groups. He accused the Brotherhood
of disrupting education at Egyptian universities and said the group is
harmful to Islam.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

[Published by the Jerusalem Post under the title "New opponents, new challenges in the Middle East"]

Hezbollah is under pressure as the consequences of its ongoing
intervention in Syria have come back to bite the terrorist organization.
There are increasing indications that the sectarian war raging in Iraq and Syria is now moving irrevocably into Lebanon.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Islamic State has
claimed a deadly, complex suicide attack in a town north of Baqubah in Iraq's Diyala
province that killed at least 25 people. The suicide attack in
Diyala took place today in the town of Qara
Qubah, and targeted a government complex. Reuters reported that the attack was executed using three car
bombs driven by suicide bombers, and 25 people, including civilians and troops,
were killed and more than 60 were wounded. The Islamic State claimed
that the attack was carried out by three foreign fighters: Abu Sarah al Almani,
from Germany; Abu Muhammad
al Jazrawi, from Saudi Arabia;
and Abu Turab al Turki, from Turkey,
according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which obtained and translated three statements
from the group that were released on Twitter.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Turkish and U.S. officials are
now planning to push the "moderates" onto the battlefield. The
"moderates" -- Islamists featuring lighter shades of jihad -- will be
trained at a military base in Turkey to specialize in bombing,
subversion and ambush, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, and expected to fight
Islamists featuring darker shades of jihad.
The "moderates" are a potential threat to Western security interests. They are potential allies of Turkey's Islamists.
If Turkey had not funded and armed ISIS in the hope that it would bring Assad's downfall, none of this would have happened.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

WARNING: This post contains images which some readers may find disturbing. Caution is advised.

The fate of Kobani city now hangs in the balance, as around 9000
fighters of the Islamic State organization close in on the Kurdish held
area. The current IS assault on the Kobani enclave was not the first
attempt by the jihadis to destroy the Kurdish-controlled area.

"Islam is a religion of peace and
has nothing to do with the ideology of our enemies." — Home Secretary
Theresa May, on the beading of David Haines by IS in Syria.
The documentary did not shed light on why the British government
continues to allow Sharia law to take precedence over UK law by
tolerating polygamy.
"You've got an eight, nine, 10-year-old child playing those kind of
violent games with heads blowing off and limbs blowing off. What kind of
mentality is that kid going to have?" — Convicted terrorist Shahid Butt
blaming video games for radicalization of Muslim youth.
"Gangs raping children get let off and ignored, people making
comments about it get chased down and treated more severely than the
rapists." — Angry citizen in South Yorkshire

Islam-related issues were widespread in Britain during the month of
September 2014. What follows is a summary of the main stories, presented
in three broad themes.

The UN Security Council unanimously,
which is a rare occasion during the recent years, adopted a resolution
on the fight against terrorism. Pravda.Ru interviewed executive
secretary of the Presidium of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems,
Araik Stepanyan, about old and new threats in the Middle East and in the
whole world.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The United States and its allies have launched a military campaign whose
stated goal is, in the words of President Barack Obama, to "degrade and
ultimately destroy" the Islamic State (I.S., also known as ISIS or
ISIL) established by Sunni jihadis in a contiguous land area stretching
from western Iraq to the Syrian-Turkish border.
As the aerial campaign begins in earnest, many observers are
wondering what exactly its tactical and strategic objectives are, and
how they will be achieved. A number of issues immediately arise.
Any state—even a provisional, slapdash, and fragile one like the
jihadi entity now spreading across Iraq and Syria—cannot be "destroyed"
from the air. At a certain point, forces on the ground will have to
enter and replace the I.S. power. It is not yet clear who is to play
this role—especially in the Islamic State's heartland of Raqqa province
in Syria.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Turkey and Europe have witnessed violent protests of the Kurds who,
according to Turkish and Western media, are extremely concerned about
the activities of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan in Syria. The West had
been pedaling the creation of the Kurdish state with a view to finally
solve the problem of Bashar al-Assad. Yet, Recep Erdogan stood on the
way. The Turkish PM is facing a dilemma: either to preserve the
integrity of the state or ruin relations with ISIL.

The Kurdish town of Kobane
in western Syria is under siege by the Islamic State. A U.S.-led coalition has
hit at the jihadists sieging Kobane—with 13 strikes on Wednesday and Thursday—but bombs
alone may not suffice. It is the Turkish military, whose tanks are currently
sitting on the Syrian border, that may be in the best position to save stave
off a mass slaughter. But the Turks refuse to join the fight, even though the
Turkish Parliament voted on Oct. 2 to deploy the Turkish army to fight in Iraq
and Syria, and to allow foreign troops on Turkish soil. A week after the vote, Turkey has not
participated in any
U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State.

Friday, October 10, 2014

The US President Barrack Obama admitted
during a CBS interview that the United States underestimated the
opportunity that a war-torn Syria would provide for the comeback of
extremist militant groups. He defined Iraq and Syria as "ground zero for
jihadists around the world".

According to Obama, the head of the Us
intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that they
underestimated what had been going on in Syria. [1]

At the beginning of September Obama had
also claimed that "the war on ISIS would last at least 3 years" and a
few weeks later the Senate passed a bill authorizing Obama to begin
arming "moderate" rebels in Syria as part of a plan to step up the US
military campaign against ISIS militants.

The bill allocates $500 million not only
to the arming and training of Syrian rebels, but also to the expansion
of US military action in Iraq. Included in the bill is also the
extension of US government funding until December 11.

In the meantime the coalition, which
includes the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates, have begun the airstrikes against Isis targets in Syria and
Iraq.

The fate of the Kurdish enclave in Kobani appears to be sealed. The
greater part of the formerly Kurdish-ruled area has already fallen to
the forces of Islamic State. Some 9,000 Islamic State fighters are
positioned close to the last remaining redoubt – Kobani city itself. The
black flag of the Sunni Islamists is already flying in three
neighborhoods of the city.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al
Sham (ISIS) is not the only violent group opposed to the government of Iraq.
Groups ranging from Salafist-jihadist to Sunni nationalist have also been
mobilized against Baghdad since at least 2013. They remain a threat to the
government even if ISIS is removed, especially if the core concerns of Iraqi
Sunnis remain unaddressed by the Iraqi government. The primary grievances of
most Iraqi Sunnis include the integration of Shi‘a militias into the Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF), attacks by the ISF in Sunni civilian areas, and
political exclusion in Baghdad.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

In June 1919, aboard an Allied warship en route to Paris, sat Damat
Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of a crumbling Ottoman Empire. The elderly
statesman, donning an iconic red fez and boasting an impeccably groomed
mustache, held in his hands a memorandum that he was to present to the
Allied powers at the Quai d'Orsay. The negotiations on postwar
reparations started five months earlier, but the Ottoman delegation was
prepared to make the most of its tardy invitation to the talks. As he
journeyed across the Mediterranean that summer toward the French shore,
Damat Ferid mentally rehearsed the list of demands he would make to the
Allied powers during his last-ditch effort to hold the empire together.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have ignited a "time
bomb" by funding the global spread of radical Islam, according to a
former commander of British forces in Iraq.

General
Jonathan Shaw, who retired as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff in
2012, told The Telegraph that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were primarily
responsible for the rise of the extremist Islam that inspires Isil
terrorists.

Though everyone adheres to Washington and its Gulf
allies’ anti-terrorist discourse, everyone understands that it is only a
rhetorical justification for a war that has other purposes. The United States
say they want to destroy the Islamic Emirate which they created and which
performs for them the ethnic cleansing necessary to its plan for the remodeling
of the "Broader Middle East". Stranger still, they say they want to
fight in Syria
alongside the moderate opposition which is composed of the same jihadists. Finally,
they destroyed Rakka buildings that had been evacuated two days earlier by the
Islamic Emirate. For Thierry Meyssan, behind these apparent contradictions the
gas war continues.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

In a video released by 'Amaq News, an unofficial news organization
affiliated with the Islamic State, several Russian-speaking fighters are shown
taking positions overlooking the Kurdish city of Kobane (or Ayn al Arab in
Arabic). The fighters, according to the video's title, are Chechen and more
than likely belong to a group loyal to Omar al Shishani, a senior military
leader in the Islamic State. The Islamic State has been battling forces from
the PKK-linked People's Protection Units, or YPG, for control of the Syrian
town. [See Threat Matrix report, Islamic
State advances near Kobane.]

Saturday, October 4, 2014

The Islamic State carried
through on its Sept. 13 threat to execute British aid worker Alan Henning if Britain did not
cease airstrikes against the jihadist group. Afterward, the jihadist group
threatened to kill a former US Army Ranger who was captured while running an
aid group in Syria.Today the Islamic State
released a short video that showed the execution of Henning. The video opens
with a news clip that announces Britain's
involvement in US-led airstrikes against the Islamic State. After the news
video is played, the words "Another message to America and its allies" is
displayed.

The Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council has taken responsibility for a
series of suicide bombings in and around the restive city of Benghazi yesterday
that targeted forces loyal to former Libyan general Khalifa Haftar. The attacks
killed dozens of Libyan soldiers at the Benina International Airport and four more
in a separate attack on a checkpoint in Qubah, east of Benghazi. Al Arabiyareported
that "two cars loaded with explosives targeted a military checkpoint near
Benina International Airport in Benghazi." According to Al Jazeera,
the airport houses "heavy
weaponry" which the militants are fighting to obtain. Al Jazeera
also claims that up to "four separate suicide attacks targeted the Benina
air base." Following the suicide bombings, heavy clashes occurred near the
airport, with government airstrikes
allegedly being used in defense.

Friday, October 3, 2014

The emergence of ultra-violent
groups in the Middle East has allowed non-violent extremist groups in
the West to claim an undeserved moral credibility. ISIS is the ideal
fig-leaf. Even al-Qaeda, by comparison, now looks "moderate."
Many of those Muslim groups that condemned ISIS have a long history
of promoting extremism themselves. It turns out, for example, that
senior officials at Al Muntada Trust -- which recently published a
statement condemning ISIS, signed by nine other Islamic organizations --
have worked closely with Nabil al-Awadi, a "key financier" of ISIS.

When
analyzingthe links between Isis and
countries like Italy and Austria one evident common denominator that emerges is
the so called “Balkanicconnection”,
which means that in both these countries a conspicuous role on jihadist
propaganda and recruitment is covered by radical networks runt by individuals
from the Balkans, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In some way
we could draw a parallel with the “Milan-Vienna-Sarajevo” triangle that became
well-known in the 90’s during the civil war in Bosnia, when hundreds of foreign
fighters, mainly from Arab countries, who joined the Mujahid unit, found
financial and logistical support in the two European cities on their way to
fight in Bosnia.

"They said it could never happen and now it almost has." said a
spokesman for a Baghdad aid group, who says the Iraqi army is unprepared
to battle ISIS.

Islamic State (ISIS) fighters are only one mile away
from Baghdad, Iraq's capital, according a spokesman for the Foundation
for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, a Christian aid group.
"They said it could never happen and now it almost has. Obama says he
overestimated what the Iraqi Army could do. Well, you only need to be
here a very short while to know they can do very, very little," said the spokesman.

Leading jihadist
ideologues, including several openly allied with al Qaeda, have proposed a
truce between the Islamic State and its rivals. The initiative, which is being
promoted on Twitter, aims to bring together the warring jihadist factions in Iraq and Syria against the West. The proposal, titled
"An Initiative and Call for a Ceasefire Between Factions in Syria,"
was released online on Sept. 30. "Due to the Crusader attack on our Muslim
brothers in Syria and Iraq," the
authors argue, the jihadists must set aside their violent disagreements. They claim that the US-led
bombing campaign is part of a war "against Islam and not against a
specific organization."

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Turkey’s lax border policies have enabled ISIS to finance and arm its fighters
in Syria; ISIS cells are now
operating throughout Turkey.
And Turkey also helped Iran, a state
sponsor of terror, evade sanctions to the tune of billions of dollars in 2012
and 2013. Yet this week, Turkey
chaired the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum in New York.
It could be an item from The Onion — except it’s not satire.
Launched in 2011 after the failure of previous multilateral groups to tackle
terrorism, the 30-country GCTF has itself become a farce — not least because Turkey is the co-chair, along with the United States.
Turkey
holds this honor because of its rare qualities: It is a Muslim country that is
a trusted US and NATO ally.But it has also become a hub for terrorist recruiting and support — most
definitely including ISIS recruiting and
support, as The New York Times has reported.

Monday, September 29, 2014

On Tuesday, September 23,
the U.S. government
announced that a new bombing campaign was under way in Syria. The
Obama administration had been building the case for airstrikes for weeks. The
president and his surrogates repeatedly highlighted the threat posed by the
Islamic State (often called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL),
which has captured large swaths of territory across Iraq
and Syria.
Unexpectedly, the administration announced that American missiles had also
struck something called the “Khorasan group,” which was in the final stages of
planning attacks in the West. The group may even have been close to striking
inside the United States.

When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sat down in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, surrounded by the leaders of 10
Arab states, to build a coalition against Islamic State (ISIS), the
scene dripped with irony.
For decades, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with Arab billionaires in
Gulf Arab states, have financed the breeding grounds of Islamic
extremism in the tens of thousands of madrassas spread around the world,
from Philippines to Philadelphia.
Take the case of the al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, whose death
President Barack Obama boasted about at the Wales NATO summit as an
example of America's approach to dismantling al-Qaida-affiliated groups.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Jihadi violence serves not only
to advance the terrorist's delusion of immortality, but also to add,
however perversely, an apparent and desperately needed erotic
satisfaction, using religion as the justification.
Persuasive promises of immortality -- the desperate hope to live forever -- underlie virtually all major religions.
Washington and Jerusalem should finally address what needs to be done
in addition to military remediation -- reinforcing efforts to convince
these terrorists that their expected martyrdom is ultimately just an
elaborate fiction.

While many have rightfully criticized
U.S. President Obama's recent assertion that the Islamic State "is not
Islamic," some of his other equally curious but more subtle comments
pronounced in the same speech have been largely ignored.
Consider the president's invocation of the "grievances" meme to
explain the Islamic State's success: "At this moment the greatest
threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups
exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is
ISIL—which calls itself the Islamic State."

Friday, September 26, 2014

The extremism of Islamist nature in Bosnia - Herzegovina that facilitated the recruitment of a significant number of Balkan muslims into the ranks of ISIS and other terrorist groups in the MENA region, does not come as a suprise, since a steady built up of networking and subversion has been going on for the past generation.Below some notable, hand-picked but "forgotten" examples follow along with brief description.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

While Western public opinion is fed information about the constitution
of a purported international coalition to fight against the "Islamic
Emirate", the latter changes shape discreetly. Its principal officers
are no longer Arab, but Georgian and Chinese. For Thierry Meyssan, this
mutation shows that NATO ultimately intends to use the "Islamic Emirate"
in Russia and in China. Therefore, both countries must act now against
the jihadists before they return to sow chaos in their countries of
origin.

Monday, September 22, 2014

British politicians seem to be
trapped in an endless debate over how to curb both violent and
non-violent extremism within the Muslim community.
A truly useful measure might be to end the provision of state funding and legitimacy to terror-linked extremist charities.

"My son and I love life with the beheaders." — British jihadist Sally Jones.
Mujahidah Bint Usama published pictures of herself on Twitter holding
a severed head while wearing a white doctor's jacket; alongside it, the
message: "Dream job, a terrorist doc."
British female jihadists are now in charge of guarding as many as
3,000 non-Muslim Iraqi women and girls held captive as sex slaves.
"The British women are some of the most zealous in imposing the IS
laws in the region. I believe that's why at least four of them have been
chosen to join the women police force." — British terrorism analyst
Melanie Smith.

Friday, September 19, 2014

As U.S. jets pounded Islamic State positions
north of Baghdad this week, diplomats pondered their options in Paris.
U.S. President Barack Obama has stressed the importance of a
collaborative global effort to combat the Islamic State (commonly known
as ISIS and ISIL) which has been rampaging across much of Iraq and
Syria, slaughtering as they go.The president said, “American military
power is unmatched, but this can't be America's fight alone.” He want
to build an international coalition which will come together to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State.
But based on the reactions of international leaders, he has yet to
receive any concrete commitments to take an active part in the military
campaign against the Islamic State.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Introduction
The successive atrocities committed by the Islamic State (IS,
previously called the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham – ISIS) have
diverted the discussion away from an understanding of this
organization's political program, creating the erroneous impression that
it is simply a more vicious version of Al-Qaeda. According to this
view, this organization presumably intends to attack the West by means
of its foreign militants who hold Western passports and could return to
Western countries to carry out terror attacks – and hence it is
paramount to destroy the IS forthwith. Saudi King 'Abdallah bin 'Abd
Al-'Aziz promoted this approach when he said that he was certain that
those jihadists "would arrive in Europe within a month and in America
within two months".[1]
This report seeks to clarify the IS's doctrine based on the
organization's official writings and speeches by its leaders. It will
argue that, unlike Al-Qaeda, the IS places priority not on global
terrorism, but rather on establishing and consolidating a state, and
hence it defers the clash with the West to a much later stage. In this,
it is emulating and reenacting the early Islamic model.

A new paramilitary structure seems to have been formed as of recent in Kosovo, aiming chiefly to disentegrate FYROM, but also with tendncies against Montenegro, Serbia and Greece and with a potential role to play also in Albania as well.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

President Obama is set to
discuss his plan for confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) in a primetime speech this evening. According to press reports, the president is ready to
authorize the use of military strikes against the group in Syria. Thus
far, American military action has been limited to neighboring Iraq. This is a
step in the right direction by Obama. As the administration recognizes, the U.S. and its allies cannot take the fight to
ISIL without targeting its substantive strongholds in Syria.

Friday, September 12, 2014

The glitzy NATO summit in Newport has not publicly announced major
decisions but it is likely that they were taken in secret. To prevent
Russia and China - but also India - from continuing their development,
NATO can count on Terrorism from the Islamic Emirate which it pretends
to condemn and fight.

The Newport (Wales) Summit is NATO’s largest since
the 2002 Prague edition. At the time, it meant to include new central
and eastern European states within the Alliance. This time it’s about
planning a long-term strategy to contain the development of Russia and
China so as to prevent their competing with the United States [1].

Anything related to NATO is a matter of debate. Indeed, it has
continued, since its inception in 1949, to manipulate the facts to
present itself as a defensive alliance against Soviet expansionism,
whereas it is the Warsaw Pact, created six years later in 1955, which
aimed to defend the socialist states in the face of Anglo-Saxon (and not
vice versa) imperialism.

Despite tensions stemming from their domestic policies,
non-Islamist actors such as Egypt and the Gulf monarchies are America's
natural partners in the region because they favor stability and the free
flow of oil and gas while opposing terrorism.

A new fault line has emerged in Middle Eastern politics, one that will
have profound implications for America's foreign policy in the region.
This rift is not defined by those who support or oppose the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or by conflict between Sunnis and
Shiites and the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is
characterized by a fundamental division between Islamists and
non-Islamists.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Greece’s National Intelligence Service said Tuesday that it was at “a
heightened state of vigilance” for suspected militants, keeping close
tabs on radical Muslims, and had detected at least six foreign fighters
with the terrorist group Islamic State transiting through the country in
recent months.
The surveillance operation comes amid concern that
the militant group, formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,
or ISIS, will retaliate for increased U.S airstrikes in Iraq and
possible strikes in Syria.

In a televised address
this evening, President Barack Obama outlined his ideas on how to
defeat the Islamic State. Along the way, he declared the organization
variously known as ISIS or ISIL to be "not Islamic."
In making this preposterous claim, Obama joins his two immediate predecessors in pronouncing on what is not Islamic. Bill Clinton called the Taliban treatment of women and children "a terrible perversion of Islam." George W. Bush deemed that 9/11 and other acts of violence against innocents "violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith."

While for the past 35 years Saudi Arabia has supported all the jihadist
movements to the most extremist, Riyadh seems suddenly to have changed
policy. Threatened in its very existence by a possible attack from the
Islamic Emirate, Saudi Arabia has given the signal for the destruction
of the organization. But contrary to appearances, the EIS remains
supported by Turkey and Israel who sell their looted oil.

U.S. President Barack Obama said recently that he had no strategy as
yet toward the Islamic State but that he would present a plan on
Wednesday. It is important for a president to know when he has no
strategy. It is not necessarily wise to announce it, as friends will be
frightened and enemies delighted. A president must know what it is he
does not know, and he should remain calm in pursuit of it, but there is
no obligation to be honest about it.
This is particularly true because, in a certain sense, Obama has a
strategy, though it is not necessarily one he likes. Strategy is
something that emerges from reality, while tactics might be chosen.
Given the situation, the United States has an unavoidable strategy.
There are options and uncertainties for employing it. Let us consider
some of the things that Obama does know.

Monday, September 8, 2014

According to Burkhard Freier, the
director of domestic intelligence for North Rhine-Westphalia, German
Salafists are increasingly inclined to use violence to achieve their
aims, and many have travelled to Iraq or Syria to obtain combat
training.
"The intention of these people is to provoke and intimidate and force
their ideology upon others. We will not permit this." — Wuppertal Mayor
Peter Jung.
"In Germany, German law is determinative, not Sharia law." — Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Volker Kauder.
Salafist ideology posits that Sharia law is superior to all secular
laws because it emanates from Allah, the only legitimate lawgiver, and
thus is legally binding for all of humanity. According to the Salafist
worldview, democracy is an effort to elevate the will of human beings
above the will of Allah.

The Islamic State this week executed kidnapped American journalist
Steven Sotloff – in 'retaliation', the group said, for US bombing of its
area of control in Iraq. The murder of Sotloff once more indicated the
savage brutality of this group.
But while the IS may be almost without rivals in terms of its
capacity for cruelty, events on the ground in Iraq and to a lesser
extent in Syria are indicating its limitations as a military force. IS
tactical setbacks, however, do not yet cast a serious shadow over the
future existence of the Islamic State.

"Eighty years ago, they joined three nations together and formed
Iraq. This mistake must not be repeated … The solution is a breakup,"
says General Maghdid Haraki.
The Kurdish peshmerga officer is speaking from the front lines in
Khazar, northern Iraq. His position is only 45 kilometres northwest of
Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish regional government (KRG),
which along with Sunni and Shiite Arab lands makes up modern Iraq.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Since containment is no longer a viable option, Washington
must build a regional coalition of the willing to roll back the
terrorist group.

"We don't have a strategy yet." With those words, President Obama seems
to have encapsulated everything that his critics have been alleging for
months: that he's improvising, halting and altogether slow to react to
the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, the
brutal terrorist group that has seized much of Iraq and Syria and on
Tuesday claimed to have beheaded a second American journalist, Steven
Sotloff. And certainly, the president's detractors have pounced on his
poorly chosen words.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The center
of Caucasian jihadist media propaganda is located in Europe
and it is under the eyes of several European governments who seem to be fully
aware of it.

The Kavzkaz Center (Кавказ-центр) is a private
website that has been active on the scene for almost two decades. According to
its mission the objective of the site is to report events related
to Chechnya and to provide
international news agencies with news-letters, background information and
assistance in making independent journalistic work in Caucasus.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Belgian security services have estimated that the number of European jihadists in Syria may be over 4000.
European leaders have directed their nastiest comments against the
Jewish state, none of them has asked why Palestinian organizations in
Gaza put their stockpiles of weapons in hospitals, homes, schools and
mosques, or their command and control centers at the bottom of large
apartment buildings or underneath hospitals. None of them has even said
that Hamas is a terrorist organization despite its genocidal charter.
The majority of them are wedded to the idea of redistribution. Their
policies are anti-growth, do not afford people any economic opportunity,
and are what caused these economic crises in Europe in the first place.
The United States seems to be following these thoroughly failed
policies as well.
"Europe could not stay the same with a different population in it." — Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Growing Muslim populations in Europe affect European security in a
variety of ways from changes in voting patterns and military
recruitment; to the proliferation of Islamist groups espousing goals
antithetical to Western values and interests; to the development of
no-go zones where traditional Islamic law, or Shari'a, is replacing
Western law; to Islamist attempts to influence and exploit European
policies toward conflicts in the Muslim world.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

The advance of the Islamic State in Syria and al-Sham (ISIS), currently
known as the Islamic State, has focused the international spotlight over
Syria and Iraq, as ISIS has taken control over huge swathes of the two
countries. Although Lebanon has managed to stay off the international
radar, instability and sectarianism leave the country equally vulnerable
to this growing threat in the region.

About the authorAli Hammad was born in 1971 and has Bahrainian citizenship. He has married a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation and has two juvenile children with her. He is currently imprisoned in the Zenica jail (BH), since 1997, because of a crime which he may or may not have committed. He had left secondary school, chemical and biological program, but omitted the final year for the grave situation which he was then experiencing. Then, he had continued to attend the unrecognized and forbidden Military Academy in Ossama bin Laden's training camp "Cooliet Javer el-Askhariye" in Afghanistan and finished it in BH from 1992 to 1995. He is former military officer in the counter-attack infantry in the terrorist network "Al-Qaida", and thereafter he resigned from it after the terrorist attack on September 11th. Now, he has become an active member of international counter-terrorist organization and participant in the campaign in the battle against international terrorism of any sort. He has forever taken off military uniform, and now he entertains regular trade activities, i. e. he plans to practice those activities after leaving the prison.